Mourning Dew
by Eph
Summary: Seriph was left stranded in her own mind with no way out.  A stranger will come, but can he save her before 'they' get to her?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I DON'T own predator or anything affiliated with it. I also do not claim ownership of any other stories, movies, etc, mentioned in this fiction.**

**The personality of the characters however. . .I came up with those all on my own.**

**A/N: This story starts out fairly slow with no mention of a Predator, but bare with me! There will be some fizzing predator action! Enjoy!**

The dew covered grass felt strange to the naked soles of her feet as she crossed the park. So many times she had ambled through this place, but never in such a way. It was like she was being guided by some dismal outside force. She hadn't even taken the time to put on shoes before exiting her house and coming here. She was still wearing her pajamas as well.

It had woken her in the usual manner. A noise as if the very foundation of her home was weeping in terror followed by the sound of metal grinding against metal.

She hadn't been led anywhere so near home before. The park had been a haven for her in the past, but now she wouldn't be able to come here without remembering this night.

She must have been getting close, for the feeling was stronger and she could hear a woman crying. This always bothered her somewhere deep down in her marrow. The woman was dead, but she could still hear the woman's cries, as if she had been there before the end. This wasn't her business. It wasn't her fault and she hated that she was the one to be here.

The body lay broken and covered in wetness. She knelt down next to the shell that had been Maureen Ridgeway and brushed a strand of hair from the cold damp forehead.

"I'm sorry."

Tears streamed from her eyes as she stood up to return home. There was never any reason for her to find these bodies, but for some reason whenever someone died in this town, she was woken and led to the place their body lay. She stopped by a pay phone on her way home to let the police know there was a dead body in the park. She spoke briefly to the dispatcher and it was quite uncomfortable. The woman began yelling at her. It was no secret this woman knew her voice well. It worried the dispatcher. After a couple minutes of being lashed out at she hung up the phone and returned home.

She lay stomach down on her bed staring at a patch of her floor that reflected a portion of moonlight. It was futile to try and sleep, so she kept her focus on the floor urging the image of the dead woman out of her mind. Every time she blinked the scene returned to her in vivid detail.

Three hours later the moon had changed position and her room was no longer illuminated by its calming glow. She listened as the front door was open and then closed. This wasn't something she was looking forward to.

"You haven't been taking your medication, have you?"

"I have."

"This is getting ridiculous! I'm sick of this!"

She looked at her sister and a tear made its way down her face and fell to her pillow. The tear wasn't a ploy for pity or sympathy. It had nothing to do with her sister at all in fact, and perhaps her sister knew this by now.

"You're sick of this?"

She sat up with a soft sigh and hung her head.

"You aren't the one that sees them lying there and gets a feeling that you could have done something to stop it. You're not the one that hears that noise and is lured to an unknown place to find someone dead!"

She grabbed at her stomach as a wave of pain shot through her. She hadn't felt it all this time, but now remembered the source of it.

"You shouldn't overexert yourself until that fully heals."

She heard a bitterness in her sisters voice that was becoming more and more prevalent as time passed.

"If only you hadn't found me when you did, huh? Then you wouldn't have to bother about me anymore."

Her sister threw her hands up in exasperation and stormed out of the room spouting obscenities all the way to her room where she slammed the door.

"I didn't want this. . ."


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning her sister woke her up and drove her to her therapy session. It was no surprise that as these episodes occurred more often, her depression increased. Her sister had been the one to insist on therapy for self satisfying reasons. A three hour session meant that was three hours that she didn't have to deal with her younger, troubled sister.

"She resents me."

"Why do you say that, Seriph?"

"Because she was named after a Lord of the Rings character and I was named after someone from The Matrix."

The therapist rubbed his brow and jotted down a few things on his notepad.

"I like them both, but Arwen hates Liv Tyler. I tell her that Liv Tyler wasn't always Arwen."

"Let's talk about what happened last night."

She sighed and rubbed her face and then ran her hands back through her hair.

"It's always the same. I heard that noise and felt as if something was pulling me. . ."

"Do you ever hear any voices?"

"No. I hear crying sometimes."

"Someone is crying when you get there?"

"It's usually the dead person. I don't always hear crying, only if they were doing it before. . .they died."

"I see."

"I don't care that Seriph was a guy."

"What?"

"I don't care that I was named after a guy. It's not that big of a deal. There are a lot of asexual names out there."

"You like that, don't you?"

"I'm asexual."

"So you've said. How often do these episodes occur?"

"Every time someone is killed."

"Do you think that it's the same person killing all these people?"

"I don't know. Sometimes they are so horribly brutalized that their face isn't recognizable and other times there is no sign of what killed them. I always know their names. . ."

She put her face in her hands and took a few deep breaths. She hated talking about it, but her sister would crucify her if nothing was said.

"I think Arwen wants you to recommend that I get put away."

"Put away, where?"

"The farthest institution from her. Maybe somewhere in Sweden, or Bogotá."

"I don't think they have institutions in Bogotá."

"It wouldn't matter to her. She blames me for our mom being gone."

She regretted saying that because the therapist straightened up slightly as if he was interested now. He had been trying to get her to talk about her mother for months now. She supposed it wouldn't be that bad as long as he didn't make her talk about the corpses.

"How does she indicate this?"

"She doesn't really. . .it's more her attitude and just the way she acts sometimes. She's not all together, you know."

"I have noticed that."

"She's the one that should be in here."

"No disrespect, but she isn't the one that tried to kill herself last month."

Seriph sighed and leaned back into the couch willing it to swallow her up. She looked up at the camera on the ceiling. So much for privacy. Seriph had asked him about the cameras the first day she had stepped into this office. Therapists weren't taking chances anymore with being accused of sexual abuse or misconduct. The cameras were there to prove they didn't get within 3 feet of their patients, which was a new rule.

"Do the cameras make you nervous?"

"No. Why?"

"You're looking at it. . .you haven't done that in a few months. The people watching the cameras can't hear what you or I are saying. Only I have access to what I record."

"I know. I think the cameras are a good idea. I wish I could have a camera follow me around to prove to people that I don't kill anyone."

"The police know you haven't killed anyone. There is evidence that it was a man, or men. You're in the clear."

"People still look at me like I'm a killer."

She shifted again on the couch to indicate to the therapist she was uncomfortable with this subject. He cleared his throat and leaned back in his chair.

"Have you spoken to your mother since she left?"

"No, but she sent me a birthday card last month with some money."

"How much money?"

"Three thousand dollars."

"I bet it was helpful."

"She thought it was my 14th birthday."

"It wasn't?"

"I'm 16 now."

"It was just a mistake, I'm sure."

"No. She's forgetting all about us. Her stupid new husband is helping by shoveling cocaine up her nose."

"You know she's using drugs?"

"I'm pretty sure of it. Drugs ruin your memory, with enough use can turn you into a blank slate, and that's exactly what that man would want."

"You never liked your step father."

She shook her head and closed her eyes. It was because of him their mother had taken off. He had given an ultimatum. Her mother being narcissistic and stupid enough had chosen him.

"I don't believe she knows what love is."

"Why is that, Seriph?"

She thought back to how her grandmother had been. She was 5 years old the last time her grandparents had been over to visit together. That was when her father was still alive and what they had still slightly resembled a family. Her mother was yelling at everyone for no particular reason.

Her grandparents had arrived just in time to save Seriph from her mother. Her grandmother was always mean to her father and bitter towards her mother. She hated her granddaughters and didn't even bother looking at them. Seriph hadn't crossed paths with anyone so cold at that time in her life. Her grandmother was monstrous. She always knew when it was a good idea to hide behind her father.

"Her mom was a complete ice queen, she handed down her legacy and her genetics to my mom. It was like she gave my mom a handbook on how to neglect children emotionally. She didn't love my mother, my mother didn't love her and she definitely didn't love us."

There was a knock on the door and a moment later her sister came in.

"Time to go."

Seriph stood up mechanically and went to the door. She knew her sister was going to try and pry some information out of the therapist, maybe even encourage him to up the dosage of her medication. She waited within earshot.

"Is she doing better?"

"She's opening up a little bit more."

"What is she saying?"

"I can't and I will not tell you."

"Why isn't her medication working?"

"Her body is metabolizing it faster than it should."

"A higher dosage would work, wouldn't it?"

"I'm hesitant to give her a higher dosage, I don't know what it would do to her."

"I really don't care, I just want her to stop this."

The doctor was silent and Seriph could almost feel his contempt for Arwen. He never took sides during sessions, but in person he was almost combative towards her.

"This situation isn't easy for me, you know. Taking care of someone with her problems is hard."

"I'll increase the dosage, but only by 5 milligrams. Stop by the front desk on your way out and they'll give you what you need."

Arwen stepped out the door, but Seriph heard the doctor say one last thing to her.

"This isn't easy for your sister either."


	3. Chapter 3

Seriph waited in the car while her sister paid for her new, more potent, medication. She thought back to what she was talking to the doctor about. Back when her life mattered to at least two people.

That particular day her grandfather was in good health and was doing magic tricks for Arwen and Seriph in the dining room while the witch and her satanic offspring verbally abused her father who never opened his mouth on these occasions. Her grandfather excused himself and went outside for a few puffs on his tobacco pipe. Arwen went up to her room to do homework and Seriph chanced a trip to the kitchen to get something to drink.

She opened a Mountain Dew and peered into the living room to see if her father was still alive. He glanced at her and forced a smile for her. She walked into the living room and sat on her fathers lap thinking that the old woman would unleash her venom upon her for a few minutes and give her father a moments reprieve.

"And this. . .girl, what is her problem? Is she brain dead?"

Seriph's father tightened his arms around her reflexively and Seriph saw a scowl form on his usually placid face.

"It's not uncommon for some children to be born with water on the brain. My brother was that way. Look at her, she doesn't seem to know what's going on at all. That blank look on her face. Her eyes are so ugly and that nose of hers, it isn't proper. All that black hair, she looks like a damn savage."

Her father was hugging her so tightly that she could barely breathe, but she felt that if he didn't, she would be sucked into her grandmothers ever moving mouth.

"There is definitely something wrong with her. Maybe she's autistic. Those children don't speak until they are usually nine or ten."

"She speaks just fine when there is someone worth speaking to."

Seriph shivered when she looked at her grandmother. At any moment she expected a fiery horned skull to burst through the shell of her grandmother and devour her father's soul. Her eyes were wide with fear, but she couldn't turn away. Her father stood up and carried her with him towards the front door. He picked up her shoes and opened the front door.

Arwen came down the stairs just at that moment and frowned.

"Where are you going dad?"

"Seriph and I are going to go for a drive."

"Oh. . ."

"I could show you how to pull a rabbit out of a hat Arwen."

"Your tricks are boring grandpa."

Seriph saw the dismay on her grandpa's face and frowned at Arwen.

"Oh, I see."

Seriph reached out her hand and touched her grandfather's shoulder.

"I like your tricks grampa."

"Thank you Seriph."

"Dad, you want to come with us?"

"No, I think I'll go play with your big screen TV."

"All right."

The car door opened and Seriph looked over at Arwen as she got into the driver's seat and shoved her keys into the ignition harder than she should have.

"God! It took them forever to fill this. Idiots! What are you looking at?"

Seriph averted her eyes from her sister and stared at the dashboard. Her sister didn't like to be scrutinized while complaining about her life. Seriph thought that on some level her sister knew that if someone was looking at her when she was on a tirade that they would know her motive behind it. Seriph did, and she hoped that there were at least a few people out there that wouldn't buy into her sisters pity trips. She knew her therapist didn't believe it.

"I'm so tired of dealing with this, Seriph. I wish you would just stop being insane. Maybe someday you can get a brain transplant and learn to take care of yourself."

Seriph was planning on taking care of herself. Her sister hadn't seen the check her mother had sent her. It was a well executed slight of hand that concealed the check. Luckily her mother hadn't written anything in the card except 'happy 14th birthday'.

Arwen had still been super mad since their mother hadn't sent her anything, maybe more mad about not coming home and carting Seriph off to some lonely mine somewhere and trapping her in there to starve to death. The two narcissists could then go spend the rest of their days dumping guilt trips on each other while sipping mixed drinks out of coconuts on some remote beach.


	4. Chapter 4

Arwen pulled up in front of their house to let Seriph out. Seriph got one foot out of the car, but Arwen began to drive off before Seriph fully got out of the car. She hopped backwards to avoid the rear tire. The door shut itself as her sister accelerated around the corner.

Seriph went into her room and opened her bag of new and improved medication that she was sure wouldn't work for long. Her body built up an immunity to everything. That was why she had moved on from pills to injections. She took out the syringe and the bottle of clear liquid. The directions said to use 5 cc's every 12 hours.

The doctor put her on injections 5 months ago, so she was more than used to doing it herself and used to the slight discomfort. Her left arm was going to be useless for injections soon since so many needles had been inserted into that vein for different reasons. She never told anyone, but a few times she tried heroin to see if it would help. The sad part is that it helped 5 times better than the medication she was on. It was too expensive and volatile though, so she had given it up.

She sat on the couch in a haze. There was a buzzing in her ears and her vision was slightly blurry. She sat there like that until the sun went down. Her sister still wasn't back, but that didn't worry her.

Seriph finally stood up and went into her room to change into different clothes, walking clothes. She wanted to go on a walk. She felt like exerting control over herself and going where she wanted to go, not where she was led. She locked her bedroom door and went out her window. If Arwen did come home before work and found her to be gone, she would throw a fit and call the police, but if Seriph's door was locked, she would assume that she would have a nice quiet night since on occasion Seriph did go catatonic.

It was unusually warm for October. and the heat radiated off the pavement as Seriph headed nowhere in particular, but went willingly. She walked all the way across the city until she stopped in front of the old hotel. It used to be packed every summer. A layover point between the casinos of Las Vegas and beaches of California, it offered all that was needed to refuel and rest to continue a journey.

At least it was until three years ago when 400 people burned to death, suffocated, or were trampled during the panic. All because a wire shorted and started an electrical fire. "Such is life."

She headed back towards home. It was a ten mile walk and it was already one in the morning. Five miles later, as she was walking past an alley, she heard movement and then the telltale feeling of being pursued overwhelmed her.

Her adrenaline spiked and she knew that her metabolism was now going to eat away the rest of the medication that was keeping her grounded. Seriph didn't pick up the pace, because she knew if she did he would overtake her sooner. She needed time to think through this which might be difficult when parts of her brain that were shut down by the drugs fired up again and caused chaos within her brain pan. A moment or two went by and she got an odd feeling. It was a sense of something pursuing her pursuer. It went away as quickly as it had come.

The plan she had developed in her head was to try and lose the man as soon as she turned the corner. He was a good 15 feet behind her, trying to remain undetected and probably thinking he was doing a good job at it. She turned the corner and ran about 4 yards as fast as she could and ducked into the lobby of a hotel. She pressed herself against the wall and watched the man run past a moment later. The desk clerk cleared his throat and frowned at her.

"Sorry, wrong hotel. . ."

She slipped out the door and stood in front of the hotel for a few minutes to give the man some time to get further away from her. She was about to cross the street when she heard a sound she always loathed.

She took a few steps, but her knees buckled and she fell to her hands and knees and cried out in pain. It was short, but if anyone had heard it, they wouldn't mistake it for anything but what it was. She pressed her hand to her stomach for a moment, then pulled it away to see the blood on her fingertips. She had torn open her wound. She may not make it home tonight, or ever.

Seriph slowly stood up and walked forward. She used the wall to support herself as she headed towards what could be her doom. A moment later she was staring down the alley that she knew the man had turned down. There was a foot sticking out from behind a dumpster. Someone had killed the person that was chasing her. It was a strange coincidence, but maybe not only that.

A memory surfaced in her mind of that split second when she had sensed the pursuit of her pursuer. He had been marked for death before he had seen her and decided to rape her. The connection of this and that has always interested her, but she knew that she could not allow herself to become open and receptive to secrets such as those. The power of her mind always intrigued her and brought her extreme pain.

Some things shouldn't be known. That realization had come to her with difficulty, but it was a good lesson to learn.

She slid down the wall for her legs could not take the weight anymore. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a distortedness against the far wall and behind the dumpster. Her head lolled to the side and she pulled her hand away from her stomach to see the damage. The blood now covered her entire hand and had pooled between her fingers.

There was a chill in her spine and her extremities were beginning to tingle because the lack of blood. Soon her brain would stop and all functions would cease. She wasn't going to complain. It had been her intent to die for years now. If someone is truly intent on dying they don't care about the where and the how, they just wish to expedite the when.

She closed her eyes and took a few shallow breaths that caused agony to pulse through her. It was strange that this injury was hurting her worse now than when it had been new. Clarity faded as did feeling. She was seeing visions, not of her life, but of nonsense that didn't make sense.

A feeling of being elevated came upon her. She was being carried somewhere, perhaps it was to a place where she could rest. Some deep dark void she could inhabit in complete unawareness.


	5. Chapter 5

It was the buzzing that woke her from a dreamless sleep. She staggered, zombie-like, to her desk and turned off her alarm. The disappointment of realizing she was still alive burned in her from her room to the kitchen. Once she grabbed a beverage and went outside it faded slightly. After a few drags of her morning cigarette it was all but gone.

The sun peeked over the roof of the house adjacent to hers and she closed her eyes against its violent brightness. Arwen opened the door for a moment and glared at Seriph.

"If you pull that again, I'll fucking kill you!"

Seriph shrugged and squinted a little more as she turned towards her sister. She didn't make eye contact or even turn far enough for her sister to be in her peripheral vision, but glanced at a potted plant instead. Perhaps it would make a better sibling than Arwen.

"Go for it."

Arwen groaned angrily and slammed the door. Seriph sighed and finished her cigarette. She didn't know what she had done and it perturbed her a little bit. It was bothersome to lose any amount of time, but even more so if it's 5 hours.

Her shower refreshed her as much as could be expected for a manic depressive 'crazy person'. She stood in front of her closet looking for clothes that would indicate to people she didn't want to be spoken to. Not being able to find any clothes designed for this purpose, she settled on a pair of baggy black pants and a black tank top. She also adorned herself with a hematite bracelet and speedily put on two coats of black nail polish to match with her atire.

By the time she was dressed and ready to leave for school, it was time for her to shoot up. She did this methodically and quickly just as she had done her nails. Many things had become very familiar to her and she could accomplish them on 'auto pilot'.

Another cigarette on the way to school gave her a numb feeling and she attributed part of that to her medication, but some to the nicotine. Concentrating on the patterns in the sidewalk made the 2 mile walk to her school pass by almost unnoticed.

The entrance to the school was just a few meters away, she had some time, so she pulled herself up onto her favorite branch and sat there. She didn't particularly care for the tree, but the branch was comfortable and at a good height to let her kick people in the head if they got too close. It was her plan to think through the past night, but she was suddenly too distracted to.

Her stomach didn't hurt at all. She pulled up her shirt and examined her abdomen. The gash that had been there was now covered in a grey film and was totally fused shut. There was a large needle hole a few inches from it. It seemed this would be far too large for a needle, but if she knew anything, she knew what needle holes looked like.

The bell to signal that classes were about to begin sounded and she flicked her cigarette into the street and hopped down from the tree.

As she sat at her desk in her first class of the day she pondered hard. Something told her that this had to do with the death of her would be rapist. The things that had transpired before then also played a part in this. That distortion she had seen must have been something that was camouflaged. It had closed up her injury and injected her with something. She knew it wouldn't show up in a blood test.

A word popped into her head and caused her brow to furrow. Extraterrestrials. She didn't like that thought and felt the word was too generic. It left too much open to speculation as well as being a conclusion she didn't wish to come to.

She aced three tests without focusing on them at all. Had something initially been following her? Was that man dead because he had singled her out and then some renegade alien decided to look out for her? She didn't think that was the case, but felt she should remain objective. This was really getting to her.

Lunch break passed without incident as usual and she entered her fourth period class to find that half of the class was present and watching the news. Clips of cadavers were flashing behind the male reporter who was feigning concern and was obviously reading from the teleprompter. The corpses were strung up, skinless, a few were missing heads and all were eviscerated.

Seriph had read about ritual sacrifices, but in those cases the body had been a child at one time. Also, police had found all body parts present and accounted for, even if they weren't attached to the previous owner.

This was an undocumented case as far as Seriph new. Everyone in the class was gaping in horror, with the exception of Seriph. She wasn't going to pretend to be shocked or concerned. She had known the true nature of humans for a long time and nothing in life could shock her anymore.

The news story changed from mass murder to a meteor that had supposedly crashed into the earth. No one knew the location and there was no evidence of it. Someone just saw a bright light 'falling out of the sky'.

The teacher, Mr. Simons, turned off the TV and looked around at the class. A girl in the front of the class spoke first.

"Are they going to catch the guy that did that?"

"I'm certain they will. A high profile killer such as that can't be invisible forever."

"Why would anyone do that? It's so inhuman."

"I didn't think people were capable of that."

Seriph scoffed and, as expected, felt eyes on her as the entire class scrutinized her with slight disbelief. Mr. Simons looked at her and folded his arms over his chest.

"Seriph, you have something to say?"

The way he said it made it sound like a challenge, but also that he knew he would regret the Inquiry. Seriph sat up a little straighter and took a deep breath. She wasn't planning on saying much, but it felt good to just breathe once in a while.

"Anyone is capable of anything given the right upbringing."

"But why would anyone raise a monster?"

"Monster? The monsters are the ones that affected his life in a such a manner that he turned into a murderous psychopath."

No one had a retort, nor did they seem to understand what she was saying.

"One can expect that if someone has been harassed enough in life, they will eventually snap."

The room fell quiet. Seriph knew what they were thinking. They were thinking back to all the people they had bullied in their lifetime and were wondering if someday they might be the victim of merciless violence. Seriph could only hope.

As class went on Seriph's doubt of the killer being human grew to epic proportion. So far her theory contained that she was being looked after by a protective, homicidal, extraterrestrial that could blend in with his surroundings. She felt she needed to work on this theory.

The end of the day finally came and Seriph decided a trip to the library was in order to find out if this news story was just a one time thing, or recurring. The library was a mile away and the heat outside was borderline unbearable. That couldn't sway her from seeking answers, however, and she made the trip in no time.

She sat at one of the many computers and was scrutinized by the librarian designated to watch the computers. Seriph swiped her library card and the machine powered up. She typed in a few search words and executed her search. Over a thousand pages were found containing articles. Not narrow enough. She tried a few more times and finally found an archive of old newspaper articles. They ranged from 1980 to 2003.

As she scanned through them the pattern became apparent to her. A meteor had crashed with no apparent sign, and for two to three weeks after there had been mass murders. All the bodies had been eviscerated and some had been decapitated. The numbers of dead were different. In one case there would be 4 or 5 bodies, in others as many as 30. LA in 1999 an entire drug gang and its lord had been killed during a shootout with the police by an unknown person, or persons. A few days later a completely different gang had been wiped out in the same manner.

The detectives that had shown up at the scene disappeared shortly after an incident with a secret government faction.

"That isn't surprising."

Seriph snorted and closed the window. She was now convinced it was an extraterrestrial that had done this. She didn't believe it was the same one in every article based on who had been killed and the circumstances of the death. These killers apparently showed their personalities in the way they killed.

Continuing the search for more recent articles didn't yield anything. Seriph had read a few side articles and added into her theory that heat was a factor. Record heat during the summers seemed to call these beings to "hunt". It was strange that there had been no cases since 2003 and there had been plenty of summers that Seriph believed would have been adequately hot for them.

"So why now?"

Seriph closed down all the browsers and turned off the computer. She put her backpack on and left the library with more questions than she had entered with. Why would they take a 20 year break? Unless they hadn't. . .Perhaps the government had put a cap on the news stories about these killers so as not to cause a panic. Seriph had never given the government much credit and assumed their purpose had been more of an act of self preservation.


	6. Chapter 6

Seriph went home and sat in her room for a long time, contemplating what she thought she had seen last night. It could have been heat tendrils caused by a steam pipe, but since when do they put steam pipes on the outside of a building? That had to have been the extraterrestrial. If it wasn't, then who carried her home? Who closed up her wound? Who had injected her in the stomach? She was convinced that it was a homicidal alien that had aided her. Why would it do that instead of just leave her to die or take her head as a trophy?

"There would be no honor in that."

A shadow passed behind her eyes and she frowned. She didn't know where that phrase had come from or why she had chose the word 'honor'. It had always discouraged her that she felt her mind was not her own. Something else seemed to access it and make her say or think strange things.

She leaned against the wall and lifted up her shirt again to inspect her stomach. The film was peeling off, but the wound was not opening up again. It was indeed cauterized. The needle hole was beginning to fade and there was a scab over it. For a brief moment she wondered, as she often did, would her stomach begin oozing out more than just blood if she peeled off the scab.

She left the scab in place and laid on her stomach. The pain that had been troubling her since the incident that caused her injury was still absent. She sighed and felt she needed to stop referring to it as an incident. It wasn't any sort of incident. It was just her own instability and access to a long boning knife. Her organs should have been completely destroyed, but the doctor said that the angle in which she thrust the knife and where she had done it saved her life. The blade had missed every organ and had left her with only a hole in her stomach that hurt like nothing she had felt before.

A shining example of her ability to screw things up. She stared at her floor for a while, but that lost it's intrigue and she was soon asleep.

The next morning her alarm woke her once again and she staggered across the room to put it out of her misery. Arwen burst in the door and glared at Seriph. Not having any clue as to what she had done this time, she just stood there with a blank look on her face and focused on a spot just to the left of Arwen's head.

"What are you doing?"

Serpih never had much faith in her sister's mental capacity, but she at least thought that Arwen remembered things.

"I have to go to school."

"What was that weird noise you were making last night?"

Seriph raised an eyebrow and blinked a few times.

"I fell asleep before you got home."

"It was like a clicking noise, really fucking annoying."

"Right. Like there is something in the world that doesn't annoy you."

"Fuck you."

Seriph didn't know where her anger came from, but she picked up her alarm clock and threw in her sister's direction. She was amazed to realize that after her hand let go of it, she was yelling an advancing towards her sister.

"Look you dirty whore! I don't complain about when you bring home a new guy every week and bang him on the couch. I don't complain about you coming home at four in the morning and slam doors, scream and carry on like a lunatic because you couldn't sleep with some random guy. I don't complain when strange men follow me around because they have some beef with you. So you need to lay off me before I decide to pick up my old habit of stabbing things with knives. Ok?"

She had been watching Arwen's eyes this entire time and she saw a look of panic in them that she knew rabbits got before their hearts exploded. She wouldn't have been surprised if Arwen had urinated on herself. It pleased her to watch Arwen slowly step backwards, into the hall and out of sight, never taking her eyes off of Seriph. This was a type of power that Seriph had never felt before and she was almost drunk on it.

After the shock had passed and Seriph could actually function properly again, she realized that she had fallen asleep before injecting herself. That must be the cause of her sudden outburst and uncontrollable rage. She decided to inject herself with one and a half doses this morning because her hands were still shaking and she didn't feel in complete control yet.

School went by in a blur and she felt she might have missed something in all of her classes. She wasn't worried about it. Academic achievement wasn't her biggest concern and she could learn in a week the same thing that took the others a whole trimester to absorb.

She was walking past a news stand when she glimpsed at a headline and it sucked all her attention to it. She picked up the magazine and read it again to make sure she wasn't hallucinating. It did say what she thought it had said. She didn't give much credit to who came up with the headline, but the article was more important anyway.

Meteor: A space rock or a space ship?

She quickly flipped to the page the article was on and read through it. It was about the latest meteor here and the murders. The article said that aliens were harvesting human skulls for some sort of new technology that required them. Seriph snorted and shook her head. That isn't what they are doing, but at least she isn't the only one that thinks it's and alien killing people.

She bought the magazine and read it on her way to the library. That was her favorite source of information.

The internet was full of extraterrestrial lore. Some of it seemed lucid, but most of it was complete rubbish. Seriph could never believe that pigs from space were on a covert suicide mission and that's why people shouldn't eat pork. If Seriph knew anything, it was that organisms everywhere differed and there couldn't be any sort of creature in space that resembled a pig enough to be convincing. Maybe mostly, but there would have to be some sort of variation. Maybe it would be green.

She read more and more and began to see the way that these hunters thought. Her theory broadened and began to fit together. There was an honor system of some sort. Weapons provoked them, they seemed to stay away from women. She remembered the article she had read about the detectives in L.A. The female detective had told a reporter that she had been pregnant when the 'monster' attacked her, but let her go for no reason. Seriph frowned. So even if a woman is holding a gun, these beings wont kill them if they are pregnant.

Her head was beginning to fill with too much nonsense so she closed out the browsers and turned the computer off. She moved to a semi secluded booth near the window and pulled out a notebook. She began to write down words and short phrases having to do with what she had read. Her right brain started to kick in and she drew a few circles, underlined things here and there, then drew lines indicating that things were connected. After she was done she frowned.

She had just given herself the answer. She even felt she knew the name of these creatures. She slowly wrote a word across the top right corner of her notebook. '_Yautja_'. Seriph's brain started to pulsate within her head and she closed her eyes for a moment and saw flashes. A bright room that smelled of disinfectant, a scaly hand wrapped around her own, a strange clicking noise in her left ear.

Her eyes opened and she saw that she had knocked her notebook on the ground and she was standing up. A few patrons were staring at her with worry in their eyes. She knelt down to collect her notebook and saw that it was open to a page where she had quoted Isaac Asimov. She read it and her brows furrowed even more. "_Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what's right_."

In her head, she could hear someone speaking now. A man with a gravelly voice was talking to someone, Seriph closed her eyes, but still couldn't see who they were.

"I'm not going to let a sense of morals get in the way of what I'm doing, because I'm doing the right thing here. I know I am."

Seriph slammed her notebook closed and shoved it into her bag. She hated that voice, but she didn't know who's it was, let alone why she hated it. After collecting herself she left the library to get home and lay in bed for a few hours. Would Arwen be there? Seriph had a strong feeling that Arwen would be avoiding her at all costs until regaining her hostility. That wouldn't take long.


	7. Chapter 7

Wanting to avoid her house for a little while longer, Seriph ventured to the park to kill some time and hopefully bring about the end of her lungs, and ultimately, herself. It was still curious to her that tabloids had led to her revelation. That didn't say too much about the state of the world in the now.

She ran her hand along her scar and thought back to the night she had almost slipped peacefully into the void of death.

It was by sheer stupidity on the hospital staff's part that Seriph hadn't been committed to an institution and gone under suicide watch. Her story had been full of holes, but no one seemed to notice at all. As far as they knew, Seriph had been slicing vegetables when she fainted. She explained that it was due to her new medication. So she had 'fainted' and somehow she had landed on the knife. Even Arwen had believed her, at least she had up until this morning.

Her cover was blown, and she figured she wouldn't be able to fool her sisterthing again. Yet, part of her believed that Arwen was stupid enough to fall for it a second, maybe even a third time. That was of no consequence, however, being that there wouldn't be a second time. Seriph had miscalculated how long it would take for her to die, or be beyond saving, after stabbing herself in the stomach.

She had been furious when the doctor had told her she would be fine, yet she couldn't express it. Next time would be different. She would go home after school tomorrow, hours before Arwen would be home, and mix ammonia and a few other household poisons, then use one of her wonderful needles to inject it into her veins. No one would be able to save her then.

A moments passed before Seriph realized she was dwelling on something her sister had said this morning. The strange "clicking" noise she claimed to have heard Seriph making. Seriph had head a noise that could be described as clicking, and was strange, the night she thought death had finally come to claim her.

When she was grabbed from behind and drug backwards, she purposely tangled her feet in the chains of the swing she had been sitting on. She was satisfied when her back hit the ground, because that meant she wasn't being dragged anymore. She kicked her feet out of the chains and turned around to face her attacker which turned into 3 as two more boys stepped out from behind a tree.

"Damnit, Carlos! You said it would be easy!"

They couldn't be much older than her and looked as if they hadn't grown since 5th grade. Seriph heard herself murmur a word that had come out of nowhere.

"Pygmies."

It was out there now and it took almost every bit of Seriph to not giggle maniacally, although she found it to be insulting to them rather than funny to her. Either way, she had to get herself under control quickly.

"What, bitch?"

When the boy named Carlos pulled out a knife, the blade glimmered in the streetlamp. It didn't surprise her in the least, nor did it scare her. A fleeting image of death passed before her eyes when she closed them and, in that moment, she was filled with hope. As she knew, a seeker of death never passed up an opportunity. She didn't believe the boys would rape her after she was dead, but she wouldn't put anything past humans. As long as she was dead, she didn't care what they did to her.

Pygmy necrophiliacs. That would make an interesting story.

Waiting was beginning to annoy Seriph. Why didn't the damn kid just slit her throat already? Why the damned hesitation?

"Here, give me the knife and I'll slit my throat for you."

"You don't think I got the balls for it?"

"Of course not. If you did, I wouldn't be alive anymore."

The pygmy leader, Carlos, took a couple hesitant steps towards Seriph, the knife out in front of him gleaming and giving Seriph a feeling of euphoria. She was finally going to meet her end and she wouldn't even have to do it herself.

He was seven feet from Seriph when something blurry landed in front of her, scooped up the boy, and threw him into his now gaping friends. There was a metallic scraping noise and, seemingly out of nowhere, blood erupted from the boy's chest. Seriph looked harder and could faintly see something impaling the boy. A spear materialized, protruding from the now dead boys chest and back. Seriph watched as the large blurry thing holding the spear materialized into a close to 8ft tall alien.

The surviving boys ran into the trees screaming to a god that Seriph knew wasn't going to answer them. The alien didn't make any move to follow them, but instead removed his spear from the corpse, then knelt down and began to remove the boy's head. Seriph watched the procedure in silence. It was only after the alien secured the spine to a notch in his armor, Seriph chose to speak.

"I was right, you only kill people that have weapons."

"I was right as well, you don't remember me."


	8. Chapter 8

Seriph took a step back and frowned. She wondered when and where she would have had the opportunity to meet an extraterrestrial. She couldn't quite put her finger on it. The 'alien' stood up and turned to look down at Seriph, or so she assumed he was looking at her. He was wearing a strange mask, but for some reason she thought she knew what the face behind it looked like.

"We used to speak frequently."

"When? Where?"

"We were held in the same facility. You were only a child then so I'm not surprised you're having difficutly remembering."

Her lips parted slowly and she spoke a word.

"Bro'tos."

"You know my name, but you don't know how or why."

Seriph nodded. She felt the figurative wind of something strange rushing towards her as she stood on the brink of something she couldn't identify. 6 years of her life was missing from her memory. She had been 7 and then suddenly she was 13 stepping into a world she didn't know. One that had become utterly foreign to her.

She didn't know what she was doing, but without consulting her mind, her body closed the gap between her and the hulking creature in front of her. Seriph wrapped her arms around him and felt the tears pouring down her face. Bro'tos returned the embrace and ran his hand over her shoulder.

"I forget the truth, Bro'tos, and I see things that were never real. I think someone did something to me. What did they do?"

"I don't know all of it, but I will tell you what I know. This isn't the place for it, we should go back to your dwelling."

Seriph nodded and they walked in silence back to her house. She wanted to talk to him, but it would be pretty odd if she was seen meandering down the street talking to herself. She had a lot of problems, but she wasn't insane, and she didn't want people to think that she was.

As expected, Arwen wasn't in residence when they arrived, so she took Bro'tos through the house instead of making him come through the window. Seriph laid down on her bed and Bro'tos sat on the edge and looked down at her.

"My knowledge is limited since I was only captive for 4 years, you had already been there for 2, so I don't know what they did to you then. Most of what they experimented with was brain augmentation. The plan was to turn you into something programmable. They wanted an assassin that could read minds as well as force thoughts into other people's heads."

"I was only a kid. . ."

"Maybe physically, but anyone that had ever met you would say you were far more advanced than most adults, mentally. You may have been the most advanced human alive back then."

"I was, not I'm just broken."

"I wouldn't say you were broken, but even so, broken things can be fixed."

"What did they do to you in there?"

"Genetic testing and a little but of gene splicing."

"Did they do that to me?"

Bro'tos nodded and Seriph frowned.

"They had no right to do that."

"They felt they were obligated to."  
"Scientists have a way of ruining lives."

"You said that long ago as well."

"Bro'tos, I want to remember you."

"You will."


End file.
